PhocusWright ITB Berlin 2007: latest trends and highlights

We just came back from ITB Berlin where we attended the latest PhocusWright Conference on Travel Technology for the tourism and hospitality industries. Here are our conference highlights.

Travel Metasearch growing fast
Paul English, CTO and Co-Founder of Kayak.com shared some impressive numbers on the fast growth of metasearch: Kayak is now reporting some 15 million searches per month. In January 07, the ComScore Report 2006 showed a 163.3% monthly unique visitors's growth for kayak.com whilst some problems in the OTAs appeal start to show (visitors are decreasing for Expedia Inc, Travelocity and Priceline.com.). More travel options from an extensive range of travel providers, rich filtering and personalization tools and the choice on where to buy (supplier or agency): these unique selling points are definetely bringing value to consumers.

Human Digital Assistant for online bookings
H-care showcased a user-friendly platform for multimodal, multi-channel and self-service customer care. The platform (HDA - Human Digital Assistant) combines high quality real-time animation, 3D rendering, state-of-the-art voice synthesis and integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure to deliver a human-like assistant capable of managing customer relationship and provide customer support. One of their clients, Telecom Italia, has recently launched radical new HDA driven Customer Care, capable of managing more then 35.000 call per day. The digital assistant can bring great opportunities for up-selling and decreased customer care costs for travel and hospitality operators.
As reported by Umberto Basso, CEO H-Care, "the possibility to offer a human-like proactive, multichannel and multimodal customer experience will create a new generation of customer care services".

Best practices in CRM and one-to-one marketing
CEO Simon Lehmann revealed Interhome's case study and described how the company successfully implemented a one-to-one marketing system based on customer's profiles (i.e. requested catalogues, number of bookings, feedbacks, preferences..) and external surveys (buying habits, hobbies,..). The purpose of the project was to benefit from the existing customer base by segmenting it and offering highly relevant products to different targets. They have now acquired the ability to offer individual, tailored-made holidays based on customer data and personal preferences. Here are some results: ten times less cost per booking, up to 30% booking response, 30% higher revenue per booking (due to optimised ranking of offers), annual catalogue production costs cut by 500.000 €, significant additional revenues generated by cross-/upselling (car rentals, ski passes, excursions, ect).
Here is a reminder to all fellow marketeers: before thinking of flashly 2.0 ideas to get new customers, try to give the right products to your existing ones.

A new star is born in hospitality
Onestarisborn is a new and unique hotel concept, with a paradox product and service proposition (luxurious and budget), tailored to the needs of the modern-day traveller. The company will open 35 new properties across Europe in the next years. More information on this topics will come soon in this blog with an interview to Onestarisborn's CEO Michael Levie.